


Amber Inclusions

by mightyscrub



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Dinosaurs, Gen, Jurassic World AU, M/M, Some Character Deaths
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-10-14 04:10:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10528668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightyscrub/pseuds/mightyscrub
Summary: Jurassic World AU.  Kazuhira Miller has a bone to pick with a certain successful dinosaur theme park.  Unfortunately, the dinosaurs are also interested in bone-picking.Featuring: Venom Snake as brooding yet sexy t-rex handler.  Ocelot as wannabe cowboy on motorcycle with velociraptor squad.  Eli and David as obligatory children in peril.  Quiet as guns blazing protector.  Huey as ruiner of everything.  And introducing Big Boss, who also ruins everything but with charisma.





	1. Bury the Hatchling

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this outlined since June but kept putting it on the backburner... Abruptly, it would wait no longer orz
> 
> This is merriam webster's definition of indulgence

_The jeep was sinking slowly in mud, roof-first._

_When Kaz came to he was a crooked sort of upside down and the first order of bleary business was extricating himself from his harness of a seatbelt to scramble-fall from the overturned seat to the mud below soaked through the sunroof. Shit, there was glass down here. He couldn’t get his door to budge, so he squirmed his way under the gearshift to the one opposite. One lens of his aviators had popped clean out and the world was a confusing mix of blind-bright and shade._

_It was evening but the sunset was right ahead of him, like it was trying to get in his way while he heaved and scraped at the passenger door. Took some new logic to open a door upside-down._

_He worked fast as his sluggish brain began to formulate the rest of where he was and exactly what he was running from._

_He kinda preferred being knocked out._

_With a clunk the door finally wedged its way open, shoveling into the mud, and he tumbled out, getting half stuck, his cut palms slipping in wet earth. Something liquid was dribbling down his face and one oozing rivulet traveled down the side of his nose, giving him a quick shock of goosebumps, before running down his upper lip and bringing the metallic taste of blood into his mouth. Guh. His hair was slicked back, spent so much damn time on it this morning like always, and yet here he was slipping on his own elbow, face-planting briefly, all mud and blood everywhere. A fucking mess he must’ve looked, like something just climbed out of hell._

_He was out of the car._

_For a moment he could only lay there gulping air, then his spinning head finally landed on something to do like a gameshow wheel._

_Call the Boss._

_Where was his radio?_

_He pulled himself to the car’s side again on his elbows, sticking an arm in to fumble blindly. The walkie talkie was hanging upsidedown from the dashboard. His bruised ribs screamed at the awkward position he had to bend into to get his mouth anywhere near the thing._

_“Boss, do you read me?” He let go of the call button and listened only to static. “Boss, it’s Kaz. I’ve located the asset. She knocked me off the road around area 7, I need backup.”_

_Popping white noise, fizz._

_Then suddenly that wasn’t the only sound any more. A deep rumble went through the earth, rippled the collected water in the mud… It jangled through Kaz’ chest and his heart stopped._

_He had to swallow a few times before his voice would work again._

_“Repeat, this is Kazuhira Miller. The asset is located off the road to area 7, I need backup. Answer.”_

_Static. Rumble._

_The asset could reach up to 32 mph running. Only moments ago she had heaved her enormous head against the side of Kaz’s jeep and sent him toppling down an incline… Had she been watching him from above? His half-shaded eyes zipped frantically around the grimy bits of windshield he could see from this weird position, but he was as good as blind. Why had he gotten back in the stinkin’ jeep? He was frozen in place, too horrified to move again…_

_“Boss, I have a fucking monster ready to eat me, send some goddamn backup NOW!!”_

_Then all at once the jeep was flung over again. The air was wrenched from Kaz’s lungs as he spun, half in and half out the door, and before he could fall, something horrendously powerful clamped onto one of his splayed legs._

_He screamed, more out of fear than the incomprehensible pain, as he was whipped out of the jeep like a ragdoll in one fierce tug, banging elbows, his aviators going clattering into oblivion, as he was dragged backwards higher and higher above the ground, tearing his leg, ripping him… Everything was white pain and terror and blinding sunset until he’d screamed the air clean out of his lungs, and then it all went too far to remember._

x

 

Five Years Later

x

Children screamed as blood splattered the glass of the observation alcove. They were clapping and grinning, equal parts grossed out and exhilarated by the slaughter. The glimpses of the T-Rex they got through the blood and foliage provided a gory treat the likes of which parental controls had denied them on television and the internet. She was an enormous beast, holding down her bovine lunch with a massive three-toed foot as she sheared its flesh, playing with her food, picky.

Kaz was about to be sick, so he glared at a wall instead, trying to block out the children’s obnoxious commentary.

This observation alcove was a cute new addition to the T-Rex enclosure. It was essentially a large tunnel made up to look like a log, snug up against the side of the exhibit’s fence. A wall of thick shock proof glass stared into the enclosure from a safe vantage point, giving the amassed audience an up close and personal view of everybody’s favorite overgrown lizard. Of course, it was a popular spot at feeding time.

Kaz squinted through his waves of nausea and his aviators at the stupid infographics lining the walls, with cheerful cartoon dinosaurs and colorful font. He leaned heavily against his cane, his ears stuffing up like he wasn’t far from passing out.

It was like he was hearing the kids whooping and cheering from a distance, packed in like sardines among their sweaty parents, all with a backdrop of crunching bone and tearing meat.

He finally leaned so heavily his cane slipped and he fell bodily into some fat tourist.

“Hey, watch it—oh.” Any irritation on the man’s face immediately warped into pity, but Kaz didn’t have time for that, he needed to push his way out of here.

He bristled as the fat man lamely helped clear some people aside. It was sensory overload. Kaz couldn’t see or hear anything, his entire head stuffing up now, like cotton wads were being pressed in through his ears, packing tighter and tighter against the inside of his skull.

He took a few deep, fresh breaths that weren’t loaded with the stink of sweat and sticky kids, and then slowly the earth stopped tilting under him and he found himself well outside the tunnel, hyperventilating in the little road leading up to it. The park was packed of course, but people politely walked around him, staring out of the corner of their eyes.

Realizing his fingers hurt, Kaz slowly loosened his deathgrip on his cane and stood straighter.

It was hot. Early summer.

Jurassic World was teeming with touring families. It was everything Kaz had ever planned for this place, from the layout right down to the Dip N Dots prices.

He scowled, and spit onto the asphalt to get the last tastes of bile out of his system.

This place was disgusting.

He knew, however, that the staff viewing deck for the T-Rex enclosure was nearby. He was able to get a glimpse of it from inside the damn log.

With a quiet swear, he began his plodding quest anew. Slow, lumbering, and followed by ignorant, well-meaning looks all around.

x

The T-Rex enclosure spanned miles, but Big Mama knew exactly when to loiter near the feeding rig, and V had a perfect view of her there from his post. The staff viewing deck rose a good ten feet above the treeline, a needle-like tower protruding from the enclosure’s adjacent research building, and through the glass V watched Jurassic World’s one and only T-Rex await her lunch. Her massive tail hung behind her amidst the tree trunks. She was a predator through and through. Despite her incredible size, she stood there in the dappled shadows of the foliage, her brown-green hide blending in with her artificial forest.

V was the one who’d dubbed her Big Mama, and the other keepers had adopted it as a codename, but V had always meant it with a certain level of affection. He was her handler, so in a way she was his. A strange far-off relationship behind glass and electric fences.

He also had a good view of the log-shaped alcove where Big Mama’s audience stood waiting down below, their tiny faces tilted upward, searching for the animal, no doubt asking “where’s the cow? when’s the cow get here?”

Near the log at the fence perimeter, the park’s chief of security was standing with her rifle in a blue uniform with the Jurassic World logo emblazoned across her chest. She was simply patrolling to the untrained tourist’s eye, but V knew perfectly well that she was here at every feeding.

Big Mama was one of their most dangerous animals. When she was in a feeding frenzy, there needed to be very tight security. Chief’s rifle had tranqs powerful enough to take out a squad of elephants in one blow, and also deadlier fare for the real emergencies. There were guards all around the perimeter of the enormous enclosure, but Chief liked to handle this critical area herself, where the humans were packed in closest to the hungry dinosaur. She and V were similar in that sense.

She caught him watching her, eyes like a hawk as always, and she held up three fingers for him, her ponytail thwapping against her shoulder.

Three minutes.

He snorted, and held up five fingers back.

Five minutes.

They had a running bet before each of Big Mama’s meals. How long will it take for Big Mama to eat the thing?

Chief always guessed too low, but V knew the dinosaur better. Big Mama was hungry, but she was also a huntress denied of her game.

She had to play first.

V pressed his thumb to the intercom button on the wall and ordered the rig.

The audience no doubt oooh-ed as a circular compartment opened in the enclosure’s fake stone floor and a platform rose with a huge, chained cow brought up blinking into the sunlight.

V started the timer on his watch.

For a few moments, silence.

A full minute. The cow plodded anxiously as far as it could go.

Then Big Mama approached, slow and deadly, the ground rumbling low under her gait. It was a comforting quake to V, like feeling the bass beating away in your chest during a concert, but slowly, a distant lull.

Her massive head cocked slightly as the cow frantically tried to escaped, damn near strangling itself, and then with one fierce peck of a motion Big Mama’s giant chasm of a mouth swooped down on the cow and wrenched it from its chain with a jangling smack and a spray of blood. The cow’s unearthly death wail was cut off almost immediately.

Two minutes. But Big Mama was far from finished.

She dropped the cow again, nosed it along in the dirt, smeared its blood across her muzzle.

She was bored. V was almost charmed by these moments, when she finally had something to do with herself.

She slowly began peeling the cow’s skin and topmost muscle with her front teeth, pinching and prying. Slow, bloody, and exploratory. The only new sensations she got all day were these meals, and she liked to savor them.

They were well past the four minute mark, and V glanced at Chief at just the right time to catch her flipping him off.

It was almost five minutes exactly when Big Mama finally flung the last flayed heap of meat into the air and caught it in her mouth, chomping with careful jerks of her neck to keep the food balanced in her throat. An indiscernible innard went flying and she snuffed around for it in the dirt, nibbling it up daintily as well, and then it was all over.

Yet she continued sniffing at the blood, burying her snout in the dirt, rubbing her face against the closed metal of the feeding platform as if trying to get to the labs underneath. A noise rumbled in her throat, and then she roared, a huge honking bellow that sent shivers of delight down V’s spine, the audience’s cheers audible even from up here.

He knew Big Mama, though, and he knew she wasn’t putting on a show. She was upset, distracted.

He watched her as she disappeared back amidst the trees, back to her boredom.

Down below, Chief gave him a thumbs up.

He waved back, but Big Mama’s behavior stayed with him. She’d been acting funny lately, and he wanted to see if he could get some answers from the labs before border inspection.

He shot a “We’re all good” through the intercom, then headed back to the elevator that would take him through the research building down into the underground laboratory. His boots were tracking some mud he noticed belatedly, and he made a mental note to fix himself up in a bathroom somewhere as the doors closed and the elevator began its smooth gray descent.

V wasn’t expecting it to stop at ground level on the way down. He was expecting even less for the doors to open on a complete stranger.

V’s immediate impression was that this was not a well-groomed stranger. It was a man somewhere between his thirties and middle age, hard to tell under aviators and a scowl and general… ripeness. His blond hair was swept from his face in big cowlicks that probably hadn’t been combed out in a few days, and he had a five o’clock shadow that rather completed the vague alcoholic vibe. Despite this he was dressed nicely, at least in clinical terms. He wore decent slacks and a blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, but the buttons weren’t done right, leaving a loose one dangling at his collar, and wrinkles had effectively conquered any fine tailoring.

The man was also missing an arm and a leg, which by itself wasn’t so bad but in this case escalated vague alcoholic vibe into potential homeless maniac.

V’s hand hovered near the button for the emergency intercom.

“Authorized personnel only after this point,” he said.

The blond man scowled. “Don’t give me that bullshit. You never canceled my keycard, you knew I’d be back here.”

“You work here?”

“Who the hell do you think I am?” The man almost flung his crutch at V while whipping off his sunglasses.

His eyes were a very pale blue. He wasn’t bad looking, honestly, and perhaps on the younger side after all.

He raised some truly unruly eyebrows accusingly. “Don’t you dare say you don’t recognize me,” he bit out.

Realization dawned, and V’s hand discreetly lowered to his side.

“You must be looking for John,” V said.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m not him. I’m his brother.”

“John didn’t have any brothers!”

“Then I’m the brother he doesn’t have, I guess.”

The fight and confusion in the man’s expression slowly morphed into a grit-teeth blank look. “Can you take me to John, then?” he asked finally, sticking his chin up. He wasn’t succeeding much at dignity in his current state, but the effort could be appreciated.

“Sure,” said V. “I have to run an errand first. It’s in a restricted area, so I’m afraid you’ll—“

The man scoffed, and in the same motion that he put his glasses back on, he took out a keycard from his breast pocket and shoved it at V’s chest.

It was a fully functioning keycard alright, and more than that it was gold. Gold was the highest clearance possible, even better than V’s. The only other person with a gold card was the Boss himself.

V whistled, as the stranger whacked him aside with his cane and stepped aboard the elevator.

The keycard also had a name printed on it: Kazuhira Miller.

“Alright, Mr. Miller,” V said, handing the card back. “You’ve convinced me.”

The doors closed and the elevator continued its descent to the underground labs.

The silence was claustrophobic, Miller scowling pointedly ahead at the doors and flexing his fingers on the handle of his cane. Their shoulders somewhat brushed in the confined space. It was perhaps a blessing that Miller didn’t stink as much as he looked like he might. If anything, he smelled rather strongly of a spicy deodorant. V knew a deodorant shower when he smelled one.

V was entirely game to just politely keep his mouth shut, but Miller surprised him.

“You’re really his brother?” Miller grumbled, still looking ahead.

V watched him out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah. If it’s any consolation, he doesn’t talk about me much.”

Miller shook his head with a tsk.

“You were close to him?” V asked gently.

Miller’s bitter silence was answer enough for that.

“That’s your first mistake,” V said. “Nobody’s actually close to him.”

The elevator alighted with a stomach-lurching bump and the doors opened on a cool, white-walled hallway.

V had a feeling if he offered this guy a seat it would only attack what little pride he had left, so instead he went about his business and let Miller catch up. They passed an inner door that required V’s keycard, although Miller’s all-access one would have been just as good. Then they were engulfed in one of Jurassic World’s many impressive laboratories.

It was a sprawling white room, right under the enclosure where Big Mama was no doubt disappearing again into her favorite nest of humid trees after her meal. Tables lined the room in neat rows, almost like a classroom, interspersed with large shining computers and equipment, always kept in pristine condition, same as the stark white coats of the bioengineers purposefully walking the lines. It was nothing like the messy labs V had populated in college, but then V barely remembered those anyway.

He knew the door yonder led to the feeding rig, a decidedly less pristine room, but V’s business was in the other direction. He nodded in vague recognition to the techs he passed by. They were used to him sticking out like a sore thumb in his dusty khakis, but Miller got a number of very pointed looks. V didn’t bring it up, and when one over friendly tech dared to ask, V just grunted and kept walking.

Miller’s cane tap-tacked behind him the whole way.

By the time they reached Dr. Emmerich’s station, he could hear Miller panting from the exertion.

Dr. Emmerich had his own partitioned cubicle, which contained a set of incubators. He was The Egg Guy, but his current project was further along. The scientist himself was about eye-level now with a large glass tank, perched in a wheelchair with a tablet in his lap, pecking out notes with big knobby fingers.

He looked up, a strand of greasy hair stuck to his forehead between his glasses frames, and smiled queasily at V. His eyes darted immediately to Miller and his smile got even more forced.

“Got company, V?” he asked jumpily.

“More or less,” said V, as Miller heaved himself to the far wall with a breathless noise.

V was more interested in the tank Emmerich was studying. It had once been an incubator as well but had been refurbished for its current occupant.

A small T-Rex pup, about the size of a dog, lay there on her side, her thick legs somewhat tangled in the lines of her own ivs. V watched her side rise and fall weakly, undulating the brown stripes across her deep green scales, the colors slightly more vibrant than Big Mama’s. Her bobbling head drifted listlessly, too heavy for her neck. One of her eyes caught his gaze and the pupil dilated.

“It’s good you’re here actually, she won’t eat,” said Emmerich. He set his tablet in his lap to back himself out of V’s way. V came to the tank and bent slightly to get his face close to the glass, that one reptilian eye still watching him.

Her serial number was DD5839. But V had affectionately nicknamed her DeeDee.

She was the first T-Rex to survive infancy since Big Mama, and the hope was for her to join the adult T-Rex eventually as an attraction—an “asset” as the Boss liked to say. But her health had been failing, same as her siblings who were already gone. Of all their animals, the T-Rexes were the most difficult to clone, persnickety in their needs and generally determined to stay extinct it seemed.

But V had faith in this little girl. She had some raw ground meat set gently in the corner of her tank, but it looked like she hadn’t even nibbled at it yet.

Without warning, V opened the top hatch and stuck his arm in.

Miller squawked, but Emmerich was used to this display, merely letting out a whining sort of laugh.

V knew perfectly well how dangerous these animals were, but he’d also been the chief T-Rex handler for two years now. He knew them.

And more importantly, DeeDee knew him. Her great maw opened but instead of biting she simply let out a crackling keen as he scooped up the meat in his bare hand. He brought it slowly to her mouth, watching her body language, and her eye kept holding his gaze, brown and slitted.

He waited. Then her jaw opened wider and he was just able to slip the meat in between her thick, sharp teeth. He pulled his hand out quickly as she swallowed the helping whole with a birdlike bobbing of her neck.

He closed her tank back up, watching her slowly roll over, her muscular tail curling around her feet.

“You’re gonna lose a finger one of these days,” Emmerich said with another nasally laugh. There was a pinched nervousness in his expression that rather belied the front of friendliness.

As such, V didn’t bother responding, and instead wiped his palm on his pants, where a smear of filth had already been developing. He realized belatedly that Miller was pressed against the far wall of the cubicle, staring at him like he had two heads. 

“Big Mama’s been sniffing around up there,” V said. “I think she knows there’s a kid down here somehow.”

“Is that why you came by again?” Emmerich slouched in his chair, fiddling with the corners of his tablet. “You really don’t give me a break huh.”

“Just checking.”

“The new asset is still too weak. If we let her up now, her ‘mother’ would probably leave her for dead or plum eat her. That’s how nature is.”

V wasn’t convinced, but he was just the handler. No use for a handler to argue with a phd.

Instead he nodded and gestured vaguely at Miller. “I’m gonna take this guy up to the Boss then,” he said in way of goodbye.

“O-oh,” said Emmerich, clearly surprised and maybe a little affronted. “Are you sure--?”

V shrugged and simply left, steering Miller out with a quick hand on his shoulder.

Miller tensed at the touch. “I can walk myself,” he spat, lip curling with disgust.

“Not a big fan of DeeDee are you,” V said, pulling back his hand. He slowed his pace this time, so they were almost side by side.

Miller seemed to hate it.

“You were afraid,” V pressed. “She’s not evil. She’s just an animal.”

If anything, her existence had saved V. DeeDee was a strange place to put his hope, but also one of the few places that would have it.

“You’re insane,” Miller told him, with utter conviction.

V couldn’t argue that, if he was being honest with himself.

They made it back to the elevator, slowly but silently.

x


	2. Clearly (Not) His First Rodeo

The sunlight directly overhead made Adam’s shadow a barely perceptible ball under the body of his motorcycle, rumbling its way across rolling green fields of humid ancient flora. Three lean dinosaurs followed him, keeping pace on either side and behind. Velociraptors – in Adam’s fond opinion, the deadliest beasts in this park. His coworkers believed he was at least half madman to handle his girls up close and personal like this, and they weren’t wrong on that count. The raptors watched him out of the corner of their narrow eyes, the curved claws of their feet barely brushing the earth with their light steps. Adam knew better than anyone that there was no training these girls. They were too smart. You could see the constant calculation in their eyes.

But that intelligence was exactly their tragedy. This field he had hijacked for the raptors’ daily “exercise” was actually a new exhibit under construction for when their baby t-rex grew up, an intended extension for the pup and its adoptive mother to be. It was the only space large enough and with high enough walls for the raptors to have a bit of fun. But once its intended occupants moved in, Adam’s girls would be stuffed back into their cramped day pen, under electric wires, to simply wither away in boredom, their delicious cleverness unutilized.

This was, after all, a park for the entertainment of humans, not animals. Adam had few qualms about this, but perhaps the raptors were his one weakness.

He crested a hill and took this moment to skid to an abrupt stop, sticking a leg out to steady himself, the spur at the back of his cowboy boot turning idly. The three raptors kept somewhat lower down the incline, knowing from experience that he had a gun at his belt, but they circled him slowly, glancing between one another.

He rolled his shoulders and bared his neck to the sunlight, letting the patch of bare chest at his collar collect more sunburn. He felt truly alive at these moments. Nice weather tended to do that.

Or maybe it was more the thrill of death circling close by.

A crackling mumble of his iDroid decided to rudely interrupt. He slipped the glorified radio from the leather holster at his belt and held it under his chin, red-gloved thumb scrolling through contacts.

“Say again, Boss?”

A breeze tossed the tail of his scarf and his hair, and he watched keenly as one of his girls eyed the movement. They were getting into formation around him, two on either side ready for a pincer motion while the third played distraction in front, cocking her head cutely as her slit-like pupils rolled with the waves of the red fabric around his neck.

He had the high ground though, keeping one boot firmly planted on its pedal.

John’s voice came over the line, clearer this time but still characteristically low. “The twins are here.”

“You didn’t meet them, I take it?” Adam said casually, as he watched the raptors hoping to sneak behind him in the reflection of his rearview mirrors. 

John grunted. “They’re taking the birdcage tour.”

“Wouldn’t pen that for their favorite.”

“They’re just trying to get every ounce off of those season passes…” John sounded beleaguered, and Adam smiled quickly.

“Eva taught them to be frugal, particularly with Dad’s handouts. You really won’t meet them?”

“They don’t want to see me.”

“If you say so.”

John disconnected, never one for proper goodbyes, and just as the raptor to his right started to lunge, Adam flicked out his revolver and shot 45 degrees from her direction. The girls bowed their heads and stepped back, their toothy jaws always looking like sly grins, or perhaps that was simply Adam’s affection talking.

“Don’t get squirrely now,” he told them.

John’s message had a clear command: watch out for the kids for me. Adam checked his watch. He could meet them at the visiting center when their tour let out.

Before that, he had one more call to make, scrolling to an unnamed contact and holding the radio closely to his ear this time.

His girls circled him, necks stretched low, grinning heads tilting.

“Ferry leaves in three hours,” Adam said. “Better have the asset ready.” A tinny voice sounded into his ear. “Mmhmm. No, I don’t think I mentioned failure. Make it work or you’re out.”

This contact disconnected just as abruptly. Nobody had time for niceties these days.

Adam squinted up at the sun again, let it heat up the sweat on his tanned forehead.

He slipped the iDroid back in its holster, and clicked with his tongue. The three raptors perked up. “Home, girls.” He stayed frozen for a moment than quickly swung himself back onto his bike, right as the three raptors all lunged for him at once.

He shot down from his perch in a cloud of dust, through a narrow opening between sharp teeth, engine purring. The raptors followed him halfway obediently as he led them back to their day pen, running on all sides on their light feet, tails swishing.

x

Kaz’s hand fiddled restlessly at his cane, held between his knees as John’s brother, who introduced himself only as “V”, drove them rather badly in one of the park’s gaudy jeeps around the perimeter of the t-rex exhibit. They started out inching agonizingly slowly through the main thoroughfare, past the crowds of tourists, before finally passing onto the dirt paths of maintenance only routes. It was a bumpy, jerking ride and the nausea still twinging in Kaz’s gut wasn’t a fan of it.

V didn’t talk much, his radio occasionally crackling with some update or other that he didn’t respond to. His hair was somewhat damp with the sweat of a physical job during summer, some dark strands falling out of his stubby ponytail to plaster against the side of his beard. Kaz could smell his sweat and wrinkled his nose at it but didn’t comment. He didn’t know what to make of such a doppelganger.

It didn’t help that John hadn’t changed the cheesy Jurassic World logo on these stupid jeeps either. Sitting here in the bumbling car beside a silent V during the noontime swelter brought back memories Kaz had been staving off for years now.

It was easier just to hate John, to pretend he had always hated John. Happy memories were insufferable.

Yet here it came:

_John Sears driving an ugly painted jeep through jungle and construction rigging, with a young Kazuhira Miller in the passenger seat, boots up on the dashboard, seat back as far down as it would go, thumbing through checks._

_“We’re rich men,” Kaz had said, the sweat on his forehead lining the crest of his pompadour._

_“That’s barely enough for the park expenses.”_

_“You don’t understand. It’s_ ours, _it’s all ours.”_

_“I understand that fine.” And then the rarest sight in the world, rarer even than living dinosaurs: John smiled._

_“Our kingdom!” Kaz flicked a hand out expansively, sun glinting on his expensive watch. “You and me, we can make anything happen. This proves it. From nothing to ruling the world.”_

_“You’re waxing poetic today. Almost like you didn’t believe it would really work.”_

_“I like being rewarded.” Kaz let his arm hang over the door of the jeep and his head press back against the seat. “The sunsets around here are gorgeous. Hope the lizards appreciate it.”_

_John just grunted, but Kaz was too high on victory to care about a one-sided conversation._

_He was too used to the world kicking him around, so he got drunk on his first taste of being the king._

 

“Bah!” Kaz slumped in his seat roughly, frustrated by his own brain, and V glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.

“I need to finish the T-Rex pen’s border inspection before I can bring you to the Boss,” V explained again, neutrally apologetic.

“That’s not it…” Kaz glared at the towering electric fence beside their route. Behind it was impenetrable foliage, and behind that, somewhere… a monster. “This park disgusts me.”

“Good for you,” said V.

Kaz glared harder. “You’re all for playing god, then?”

“You sound like one of those conservative churches we get picketing,” V responded blandly. “What I mean is, it’s unoriginal.”

Kaz whipped around to glare at V instead. He opened his mouth to spit out some sort of venom, but instead snapped it shut, realizing all at once how utterly ridiculous he was being.

It wasn’t like V could see into his head. Out of context, Kaz was just throwing a tantrum, like a damn child.

He hated this, he hated being so pathetic.

He stared determinedly ahead at the little hut they were approaching, where V eventually checked in with a small cluster of security and handlers. These check points were dotted all around the pen, moving everything along efficiently, keeping a constant eye on their beast through video feeds and motion detection.

V’s underlings seemed to like him. Either they smiled at him or stood a little straighter, trying to impress. Some quiet, effortless charisma… That was a lot like John as well.

They drove from check point to check point mostly in silence after that, until finally without a word V took them off to a road in a different direction. They’d been circling so long that Kaz hadn’t even noticed they had circumvented the whole enclosure.

“Listen,” Kaz said then. “I don’t have a problem with you.”

“Thanks?”

“No what I mean is… I’m saying thank you.”

It was poor form to take out anger with the management on a day laborer right?

Nevertheless, his apology was sloppy and half-assed. It was obvious V knew this, but he also shot Kaz a small smile.

And abruptly, that was an incredible difference. John never smiled like that. It somehow turned it into an entirely different face.

Accommodating. Maybe that was just customer service, but even at the most subservient points of their career John had never been accommodating in a conversation. He was not unkind, but he also had no interest in placating people.

This was an entirely different dynamic. John would never have indulged Kaz’s childishness. 

Kaz wasn’t sure whether this was better or he absolutely despised it.

He sat stewing in his own chagrin for a moment, and then V turned a knob on the dashboard and suddenly started blaring 80s music.

What the hell?

“Don’t tell me you hate music too,” V said, reading Kaz’s face with frustrating ease.

“No, it’s just… unexpected.”

John always drove in silence.

V rocked out as if Kaz wasn’t there, even mumbling some lines of Kids In America under his breath. Tacky.

Kaz squeezed his eyes shut and breathed. It was a mixtape, no commercials. By the time 99 Red Balloons came on, he said wearily, “Don’t have the German version?” and V snorted.

A tension faded, leaving Kaz simply tired.

x

The birdcage was one of Jurassic World’s oldest exhibits, a transparent dome with a catwalk tunneled through it, where visitors could walk directly under a micro-environment of pterosaurs overhead. The catwalk was protected in a sort of glass tube, which was one of the first things the tour guide explained so groups weren’t unsettled. Tours were three times a day, including the most popular one at noon.

Today’s noontime tour guide was named Dennis, emblazoned in sloppy writing on his nametag. He was a chipper young man with barely-there facial hair, and he gesticulated a bit too much as he explained the safety protocols as amicably as possible.

“If you look closely, you’ll notice that the glass surrounding our catwalk, and the glass of the dome itself, is lined with a lattice of cables. These are a state of the art electric fencing system. A current runs through them, preventing the pterodactyls from reaching the glass. The glass is also incredibly fortified of course! But you can see how our engineers have devised the perfect way to keep your view beautifully open while maintaining the highest standards of security!”

He walked backwards down the catwalk, arms waving, chattering away, as the crowd followed him and gawked and took their pictures. Overhead, above the glass and thin wires, were tropical trees and green ferns and man-sized winged dinosaurs with warped, sharp heads and incredible beaks. They didn’t fly so much as they toppled from treetop to treetop, clinging to branches with fat clawed feet. There wasn’t enough room for them to show off their true wingspan, but that hardly undermined the awesomeness of their very existence.

Most of the tourists were excited at these sights, many of them first time visitors, but there were two young boys lagging at the back of the crowd who had been through this exact information countless times before.

“This is fucking lame,” said Eli, a blond boy with a stubby nose and a crusty cut healing on his chin. He was twelve, and so the word ‘fucking’ still held a certain edge that he appreciated.

His brother David, who had the same face but darker hair, was not a stranger to edginess himself. He had a hidden pack of cigarettes in a sewn-in pocket in his inner jacket, which he always wore despite the heat. He shrugged a shoulder in response. He had been listening to Dennis’ speech, and although bored he still preferred it to talking with Eli.

Eli mimed a gun with his finger and pointed it at a nearby pterodactyl eating from a hanging basket of meat. “Think Big Boss will let us shoot at em if we whine enough?”

David rolled his eyes. Hunting was one of the few of their mother’s pastimes that Eli enjoyed, and he was a fantastic shot, the same way he was a genius student. But of course, Eli refused to apply these skills in any way that he didn’t find amusing, so he was completely useless in the end. He knew it too. He had the practiced ambivalence of a useless son.

Eli pointed his finger gun at David instead, eyes steely above his frozen sneer, and David smacked his arm away. “Fuck off,” David grumbled, although his ‘fuck’ was more tired than scandalous.

“I’m going to give this tour guide the usual test,” Eli said airily. “Haven’t seen his cheerful mug before.”

David shrugged a shoulder again, as if trying to get dirt off of him. Eli’s sneer settled into a smaller smirk and he started pushing his way through the crowd up to the front, where Dennis was happily describing a dumbed-down biology of pterosaur flight.

David hung back and kicked a sneaker at the railing he was leaning against. Eli’s antics were just as boring to him as the birdcage tour.

They always got unlimited passes to the park’s attractions. It was the one and only perk to being the bastards of the man in charge. He had no other impact on their life, in fact the tickets themselves were simply a convenient loophole to avoid paying the full amount of alimony.

That was why the twins called him Big Boss – as a joke, because he was so terribly small.

Certainly, they would never call him father.

They spent most of their time at the park partly out of spite but also because they had nothing else to do with themselves. They were not the sort of boys to have many friends. Their mother was always busy, working or already worked to the bone.

Useless, pointless. That was just how their summers always were.

Up at the front of the tourists, Eli had started interrupting the tour guide with horrifically complicated scientific questions. Eli knew all the answers, but the guide hadn’t been prepped at quite a phd level of paleontology and bioengineering, and of course someone with such a cloyingly innocuous name as Dennis was ill-equipped for Eli’s manipulations. Dennis stumbled smilingly over half-answers and attempted explanations, all of which Eli primly corrected, much to the amusement of the tour group. This was not the first guide he’d humiliated, nor would it be the last.

Same as always, just filling up time.

David stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and watched the eating pterodactyl as it neatly sheared strips of red meat from its basket bundle.

He wanted a cigarette but the birdcage had a no smoking policy, and while Eli existed purely to break rules, David found himself uncomfortably bound to them.

Eli wanted to wreck things. David just wanted to disappear.

x

V turned his jeep into the maintenance parking area alongside the visiting center right as Phil Collins was getting particularly soulful. Miller had grown subdued beside him, his ruffled feathers settling, but the frown was definitely permanently engraved in this guy’s face, even when it softened a little. V cut the ignition, and likewise his music, with some wistful regret.

“The higher ups’ offices are on the top floors,” V explained. The visiting center was an enormous white bean of a building, modern and swooping over the entry arches of the park. The inside had a famous display of skeletons right behind the front desk, including a complete T-Rex, and indoor exhibits branched off from the main hall, mostly movies and museum-like tours through holograms and animatronics. Naturally, it wasn’t the most popular place to be in a park that had actual breathing dinosaurs to behold, but on the hotter days some tourists did like to duck in to cool off.

There were two upper levels closed to the public, which housed a series of offices and laboratories, including the haunting grounds of the Boss himself.

John Sears – V’s illusive brother. He was just as distant and mysterious to V as anybody else.

V got out of the car, then rounded over to the passenger side and offered a shoulder for Miller to lever himself up with. His prosthetic leg went first, poking the asphalt a bit for proper purchase, before Miller pulled himself out by V’s elbow. Miller’s pride seemed less desperate to uphold itself now, but still fairly bruised.

“I know where the offices are,” Miller said breathlessly. “I designed this building.”

V’s eyebrows crept toward his hairline. Kazuhira Miller certainly had some surprises in him.

They took an outside elevator right to the upper floors, entering into a pristine white hallway, lined with glass doors into areas locked by specific keycards. V’s card only worked on one room on this floor, and that’s where he led Miller now.

It was an enormous round room lined with video feeds, tiny screens and larger computers interspersed, and in the center a huge electronic map of the park, blinking with lights and numbers. It was their security hub, their crowd counter and research tab, all in one. Some techs were scattered around at computers, monitoring and/or eating their lunch of vending machine Doritos. Usually there was some sort of foreman in charge, somebody V could easily pass Miller off to, but today it looked like he had someone even better for the job.

Adam was standing there in the center of the room, gloved hands absently held behind his back, scarf askew and hair windswept as he scanned the map.

Everybody knew Adam was the Boss’ right hand man. His card was silver.

V waved for his attention. “I’ve got somebody to… see the Boss…” he said, but his voice trailed off at the strange delight that skipped across Adam’s face before his expression went carefully placid like usual.

Also Miller’s feathers were officially ruffled again.

“Kazuhira,” Adam drawled, his spurs clicking as he came to stand in front of them both. His face was blank, mouth thin under his mustache, but there was a smile in his eyes.

“Should’ve known you’d be his lapdog,” Miller snapped.

Apparently, V didn’t need to explain Miller’s visit.

“I’m afraid the Boss is off site today,” Adam continued, utterly unfazed. “I could bring you to his office, but it would just be you and the furniture. He should be back by the evening, if you can find it in you to be patient.”

Miller shuffled forward, tapping his cane hard as if imagining Adam’s skull underneath it. “Call him. Tell him I want to speak to him.”

“He’s a busy man.”

“So am I!”

Adam raised one eyebrow, pointedly scanning Miller’s disheveled appearance, the sort of appearance that hadn’t been gainfully employed in quite some time. Miller’s face reddened furiously.

“You and I should catch up also,” Adam said, a bit more gently. “That’ll have to happen after I’ve seen to the twins, though.”

Something in Miller unexpectedly sagged. “David’s here?”

“And Eli,” Adam said blandly.

“So you’re kicking me out?”

“Hardly!” said Adam. “There are a few high quality rooms right here in the visiting center, on the third floor. Mostly for important overseas business associates, ambassadors of dinos sort of thing. I’m sure you’d be welcome to one. Relax, take a load off while you wait.” Adam finally allowed a small, mean smile. “Take a shower.”

As Miller spluttered in wordless rage, Adam gestured over the foreman of the day and gave him friendly instructions on how to care for “Kazuhira” and escort him to his room.

The foreman approached with an overly indulgent smile, like he was starting a babysitting gig, and took Miller’s shoulder before getting smacked aside with the cane. Nevertheless, he did start bullying Miller toward the door.

“I’m not done with you!” Miller snapped over the employee’s shoulder.

“Nor I with you! Like I said, let’s catch up later,” Adam said benevolently.

Then Miller was out the door, the foreman speaking soothingly, and the final note was a strident “Piss off!” drifting down the hallway before they were gone.

V stood rather dumbfounded by the whole thing.

Adam smiled at him.

“Hell hath no fury,” he said, perhaps with a twinge of sadness. “Now V, I need your professional opinion on that Rex.”

x


	3. Love in the Time of Pterosauria

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I juuuust missed updating this on MGS's 30th birthday, but happy anniversary :)

Now that the issue of the mysterious Miller had been taken care of, V was rather abruptly out of place in his mud-encrusted khakis amidst the computers and code monkeys. Adam, however, seemed not to notice. He gestured V to a series of video feeds in the corner. The footage was immediately recognizable as Big Mama’s exhibit from various angles.

“We just got back from border inspection,” V offered, lingering awkwardly on the ‘we’.

“Hmm, then I guess the problem just started,” said Adam.

“Problem?”

Adam tapped a red-gloved finger on one of the smaller screens, and V squinted. It was a view right near the feeding rig, not too different than the vantage point V used earlier from the staff viewing deck.

The ‘problem’ was obvious. Big Mama was there onscreen, circling the patch of earth where the feeding rig usually emerged. That wasn’t out of character, but this time she was really into it. V had never seen a T-rex downright flop herself onto the ground or circle a patch of dirt and rub her enormous face all over it. She snorted, sending up dust, and scraped her chin against the ground.

“That’s weird,” V said.

“Isn’t it?” Adam’s keen eyes didn’t leave the screen. “If this was one of my raptors I’d assume she’d figured out about the labs and was trying to get in. They’re clever girls. But I thought I’d ask you what this could mean for the rex.”

“Big Mama isn’t quite at that level…” V said slowly. “Her smarts are… different. But it’s like she can smell something down there. I’ve wondered before if it might be some instinct about DeeDee.”

“You think she knows there’s a baby?” Adam asked, seeming genuinely very interested.

“I’ve had a suspicion. But that doesn’t explain why she’d get so worked up right now suddenly… DeeDee’s in a tank, after all. The smell or whatever can’t be that strong.”

Adam hmmed vaguely. “Keep an eye on her for me?”

“Of course.”

Adam gestured at him with a flick of one wrist.

“I’ll do you a favor as well, then,” he continued, in quieter tones. “Since you’re curious about Miller.” His eyes rolled to peer at V through the crinkle of crow’s feet.

“Am I?” V was smart enough to know that he was almost always subject to Adam’s plans. Conversations like this, however, were disconcerting, when something like friendship mixed with the fact that Adam was clearly up to something.

“I think you would get along,” Adam said mildly, as if sensing V’s misgivings. “You could help one another.”

“How’s that?”

“It’s not my place to tell all of Miller’s story. But he and your brother were partners.”

“Business partners?”

Something in Adam’s eye glinted, his placating smile thinning. “Exactly.”

“Miller said something like that. He planned this building.”

“He planned this _park_. It was meant to be John and Kazuhira’s child.”

V knew he was being suckered in, but at the same time he couldn’t shake his own interest. Miller’s fumbling apology had stuck out to him, a glimpse at a strangely vulnerable person. V had no business with John’s friends but… if Adam thought highly of him, maybe there was something to this Kazuhira.

Doing as he was supposed to and knowing it, V asked: “What happened?”

“An accident. One of the first dinosaurs we ever cloned was a T-rex. That was before Big Mama’s time. Asset #1. We had to kill her because she escaped and... had some dinner. Miller was seriously injured, and that changed his relationship with John and the park. Fear turns to paranoia very quickly, you know.”

“I got the impression he doesn’t like dinosaurs much anymore.”

“Hates them. He still worked with John out of loyalty, but they began to disagree often, particularly when it came to security measures. Miller wanted everything air tight before the park opened, but to an extent that became more and more unlikely. This is a business. Businesses don’t work with ideals, they work with what’s available.”

“Are you saying John cut corners?”

“No. I’m saying Miller became an extremist.” Adam tilted a sad smile at him. “To get Jurassic World up and running, John had to go behind Miller’s back and eventually dropped him completely as a partner. That’s normal in business. But in terms of their friendship, he abandoned Miller at his lowest point.”

“They really were close then.”

“Two peas in a sauropod.”

“Hm.”

Adam was right. With some chagrin, V was intrigued by this.

“I don’t have time to check on him,” Adam said gently. “So forgive me for noticing you two have some things in common.”

He patted V’s arm, then went to speak with someone monitoring the pterodactyls, business as usual.

 

x

 

The room Kaz found himself stuck in was predictably lush. A wall of windows overlooking the park entrance, a desk, tasteful art, a bathroom big enough for bath _and_ shower, and a king-sized bed. Kaz stood beside the headboard and irritably fumbled with the top corner of the sheets for a tag to read the thread count. He scoffed. Expensive… But this was the luxury Jurassic World’s high-brow investors needed of course, to sway their minds.

Kaz simply stood there for a long moment, alone after viciously kicking out his babysitter. He glared down at the bedside table lamp, with its cute trim of fake nautilus fossils.

Having once written up budgets for rooms like this, Kaz could only be unimpressed. It was like knowing the secrets behind the scenes of a magic trick.

Adam had certainly fared well taking Kaz’s place in this whole affair. Kaz’s lip curled and he made his way to the bathroom. At least he could piss in that pristine toilet with some spite.

The shower curtain was heavy, like a drape, and printed with a psychedelic artist’s rendering of a velociraptor skeleton, fossilized with its head rearing back against its spine, its body an unnatural yet eerily beautiful circle. Kaz pulled it back harshly, relishing the jangling shriek of the curtain rings.

Adam had been joking about taking a shower, of course, but there had also been a hint of suggestion. Not so much “take a shower” but rather “take care of yourself.” Kaz hated that even more. He didn’t need that man’s concern.

He leaned his elbow in his cane and scrubbed his hand down his face. He needed to get a hold of himself. He felt stupid and childish again, like he had after snapping at the T-rex handler. V. His hair was greasy enough that he could feel it against his scalp. Washing up would be good after all, if he was expecting to be taken seriously. Damn but every small thing had to be difficult. The willpower for simple tasks shouldn’t have been so insurmountable, yet here he was, an absolute shambles of a human being.

He’d take the fucking shower.

He divided it into smaller tasks: Remove shoes and shirt. Remove pants and underwear. Remove leg. Turn on shower.

He left his sunglasses folded on the edge of the sink and stepped into infuriatingly lush and warm water. There was a ledge for sitting, probably meant for elderly businessmen, but Kaz used it, just perched there in the water for a time, pushing back the shame bubbling up. A twinge of ghostly nerve pain twinged up the arm he no longer had. Ignoring it, he reached for the soap.

He got himself smelling good. Spent some time on his hair, not nearly as much as he used to but enough to finger comb the clean wet waves into submission. He even shaved, very slowly. By the time he was finished, the whole bathroom was a fog from the hot water even after he shut the shower off, and getting back to his leg and crutch was difficult with the condensation on the tile floor.

He dressed in the same small steps as before, leaving his shirt unbuttoned because that was the most annoying part and the heat had left him fatigued. Instead, he made his way back out to sit on that giant bed.

He looked down at his feet, one knobby and flesh, the other an approximate match of his skintone but in metal and plastic. He put on his aviators, tucking the arms of the glasses into the delicate wet hairs at his ears.

Then somebody knocked at the door.

“Fuck off unless you’re here to take me somewhere,” he barked.

Instead, the door opened. Kaz raised an eyebrow. It was V, still in his dirty work clothes, and still looking far too much like his brother.

Nevertheless, Kaz’s ire had softened when he asked: “What do you want? Adam sent you?”

“Sort of,” said V. “I’m on break technically.”

“So you came here?”

V nodded. “Can I come in?” He was still one foot in, one foot out.

Kaz wanted to say no, but he was also very tired. He sighed through his nose. “Yeah. Fine.”

V came in and closed the door carefully. His dark eyes skimmed over Kaz and Kaz prickled under the scrutiny, thankful that he’d decided to look more reasonable.

“Want some help?” V asked, miming buttons on his own shirt.

The cold of the room on Kaz’s chest felt good, but he didn’t like John’s brother seeing him in-process. He started buttoning himself up one-handedly, shaking his head once roughly.

V took a few steps inside, arms hanging awkwardly, like a big gorilla, but he stayed a careful distance from the bed.

“You still didn’t tell me what you want,” Kaz said, sounding oddly defeated and focusing very pointedly on his buttons. The dress shirt stuck to his still somewhat wet shoulders.

“Don’t know,” V admitted. “I guess I just wanted to see if you were ok.”

That was the worst thing he could have said. Kaz scowled. “I don’t need your help.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s more like.” V gestured lamely with one hand. “You’re familiar to me.”

“Have we met?”

“No, I don’t mean it like that either.”

Kaz had reached the top button and there was no button hole left for it. He’d made a mistake. His scowl deepened in this fucking horrible hopeless _frustration_. “Then what do you mean?” His hand flopped into his lap in failure.

“I didn’t get this job because John and I are on good terms,” V said slowly. “Rather… I got it because I was dying.”

Kaz looked up over his glasses, trying to find some joke in V’s expression, but the man’s face was awkward and open.

“I was supposed to go to medical school,” V explained. “But I couldn’t do it. That’s the simple way to say it, I guess. Then I got sick and I couldn’t do just about anything. By the time I was better, I had no life. If I ever had one to begin with. I’ve always been… I don’t know. I’ve never been anything, that’s a better way to put it. The only thing that exists about me is I look like John.”

Kaz thought he ought to be irritated to be hearing such an unsolicited life story, but V’s face continued to stay his anger. It was John’s face but bizarrely it was incredibly vulnerable.

Maybe Kaz just liked having the upper hand for once, being given it freely. It had been a long time since that.

“John gave me this job because I was homeless and was letting myself die slowly,” V concluded. “That was his obligation. I’m still not much of anybody, but I’m living. What I mean is, when I look at you, I see somebody like me.”

“A loser?” Kaz asked.

V smiled crookedly. “Yeah. Exactly.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I have no idea,” V said, suddenly with good humor. “But I can see how barely alive you are, and I guess that makes us brothers in arms. I’m just trying to beat off suicide too.” 

“Who said anything about suicide?” But he wasn’t wrong. 

V shrugged. “Killing yourself doesn’t have to be immediate. You and me are doing it the slow way.”

Now it was Kaz’s turn to eye V carefully, taking in the details, trying to unlock some puzzle. But to his surprise, there didn’t seem to be much hiding.

Kaz still had the upper hand. Maybe he wanted to cling to it.

“You’re on break… lunch break?” Kaz asked, leaning over to reach for the phone on the bedside table. “I’m ordering room service. What do you want?”

“You’re buying?” V asked incredulously.

“Of course not. John is.”

V’s smile turned into a very large grin. “How about a burger?”

V sat at the desk as Kaz tied his shoes and finished his preening. They talked surprisingly easily, but even more surprising was the strange comfort in the silences.

 

x

 

DD5839, or “DeeDee” as the park’s head T-rex handler had dubbed her, was out of her tank. She didn’t like it either. The baby dinosaur kept grinding out keening noises, raising her head as far as she could in her restraints. She was laid out on the table in Dr. Emmerich’s lab, her legs bound like a chicken’s, her large tail swinging weakly. Without her nest of ivs, her skinniness was very apparent.

“Shut her up,” Emmerich snapped to his assistant, his hands shaking with nerves as he packed up important documents into an accordion file.

His assistant obeyed but peevishly. She was arguably just as capable a scientist as he was, but hadn’t grown up with the right connections. Science, too, was a business in this world.

Thinking quickly, she removed her own belt from the loops of her slacks and fastened it around the T-rex’s muzzle, pulling tight… 

With only a trace of residual fear, she laid a hand across the side of the animal’s face, a briefly kind gesture.

“Good girl,” she said. Then in an entirely different voice, she rounded on Emmerich: “Are you done yet?”

“Yes, yes,” Emmerich snapped. He turned in his wheelchair, the file tucked beside his hip. “We’re taking the emergency exit. Quickly.”

“And you’ve cut the alarm?”

“More than that. The security’s down for this lab.”

She arched a finely manicured eyebrow above the rim of her sunglasses, which she always wore at work. Her eyes were sensitive, watching computer screens all day. “How did you manage that, Huey?”

“Let’s just say I borrowed higher clearance,” Emmerich said. “I shut off the cameras for much of our route as well with a bit of hacking. We should be nicely hidden until we hit the loading dock, and then we can get her into a live cargo bin with the help of our contact. After that, we’ll just be regular ferry passengers.”

“You forgot the step where you pay me.”

“Y-yes, naturally that comes a little later.”

The assistant gave him a long unreadable look, then finally turned back to DeeDee and hefted the dinosaur into her arms. Avoiding the thick tail, she managed to maneuver DeeDee onto Emmerich’s lap. Emmerich squawked.

“She’s your contraband,” the assistant said archly. “And I’m the one who needs free hands.”

“Right right, just get us out the door please.”

She wheeled Emmerich and the dinosaur out of the fire exit right off Emmerich’s cubicle--no alarms, just as promised. A long ramp led them up toward the surface and a maintenance garage. Once there, they helped themselves to one of the jeeps, blazoned with the Jurassic World insignia. DeeDee was placed strategically in the back under a tarp, Emmerich on the passenger side and his assistant driving.

“You’re sure you know what you’re doing with this hacking business, _Huey_?”

The way she said his name it sounded like an insult, and the way he winced rather supported that.

“Just drive,” he hissed.

In the back, DeeDee’s muffled cries clicked in her throat.

 

x

 

In a desperate attempt to escape Eli with his life, Dennis the tour guide finally cut off his questions by announcing that the group could now travel the birdcage’s catwalk at their leisure and take pictures. His smile was somewhat cracked and manic at this point, but even though Eli had made a fool of him, he’d at least managed to cling to his friendliness.

Eli meandered back to David, arms crossed. The expected sneer was absent, however. If anything, Eli just looked even more sullen and bored, now that his game was done.

“Gimme a cigarette,” Eli demanded, and David just shot him a withering look.

“You don’t even like them.”

“Too bad, gimme one.”

“Like hell, they’re mine.”

No Smoking signs be damned, the real principle here was the sacred rejection of brotherly generosity. Eli didn’t deserve it frankly, but also if David gave him an inch he’d take a mile.

Eli never gave up without a fight, though, and started pulling his mind tricks on David instead, trying to trap him in loops of logic, but David met him at each blow, entirely unimpressed. The bickering boys ignored the tourists creeping past them with their eyes to the dinosaurs above, and as such they didn’t notice when somebody stopped to actually talk to them.

It was Dennis, waiting politely for an opening into the conversation, which wasn’t coming because he was effectively invisible. Finally, he had to clear his throat, smiling painfully.

“Hey,” he said as the boys looked up. Eli’s sneer finally arrived. “You’ve got some real smarts, kid. You thinking of taking up the family business?”

It was an entirely innocent question, Dennis no doubt recognizing and wanting to play nice with his boss’s kids, but David winced because Eli would have a field day with this.

“No, I just don’t think Father wants to hire incompetence,” Eli said airily. 

The expected nervousness splashed across Dennis’ face behind the smile, but he gamely kept trying. “My name’s Dennis,” he said, thumbing his nametag. “But hey, my buddies call me Pequod.”

“Is that a Moby Dick reference?” David asked, for he also knew a few too many random facts for his age.

“Yeah, that’s right!” Dennis’ smile opened up with some genuine life again. “I’m a sophomore at the community college down here, you know? My roommates and I all had to read it for our intro to American lit class…. We hated it but we wound up having nicknames. Commiserating turned into a joke, you know?”

“So… You’re the boat?” David was growing increasingly weary with his pity for this man.

“Haha well all the cool names were taken!”

“Who was Ahab?” Eli asked, eyes locked on his prey. “Must not have liked your friend if you named him after an old looney.”

“Uh, well, it wasn’t like that--!”

It only got more painful from there.

David let his attention wander. It was too agonizing to watch Eli tear this guy a new one for a second time. Eli’s triumphs in general were annoying.

He let his gaze travel across the nearby bunches of tourists, holding up their cameras and phones, pointing… There seemed to be a particularly large group interested in something directly above, so David looked up.

One of the pterodactyls was perched on the wire mesh just over the glass tube that separated the dinosaurs from the gawking humans. It was a strange birdlike motion… The massive bat-winged dinosaur clenched and unclenched its foot and hand claws slowly as it scuttled across the wire for a good position, sticking its prolonged beak into the holes in the mesh and tap tap tapping at the glass…

The crowd muttered breathlessly among themselves, the cellphones slowly lowering…

The mesh was tearing. The sharp teeth inside the pterodactyl’s beak were pulling at knots in the wiring…

David didn’t know how to get the attention of the tour guide and his brother, but it seemed he didn’t have to. Their petty bantering had already silenced.

“Isn’t that mesh supposed to be electrified?” David asked slowly, his heart in his throat because the smile had finally fallen from Dennis’ face.

Without answering, Dennis unclipped the radio from his breast pocket and spoke into it quickly and firmly. “Chief, this is Pequod… I need you down at the birdcage immediately. Code 1.”

Then with his arms over his head, he called to the crowd. “Everyone! Attention please! I need everyone to follow me to the exit _calmly_ \--”

But the rest of his message was drowned out by the pterodactyl rearing back and then smashing its massive pointed beak against the glass overhead, shattering a great big hole with a deafening crash.

x

 

Adam had gotten his intel at the command center, pestered his croneys that deserved pestering, and was preparing to leave when the entire room started blinking red. Everyone scurried to their workstations immediately, as alerts popped to life across the enormous park map in the middle of the room. An alarm screamed. Adam had his nose to the screen in an instant, eyes darting from emergency to emergency across the board…

The alerts all said the same thing, in tiny text alongside red exclamation points.

Code 1. Infrastructure unstable. Assets likely to escape.

“What’s the problem,” Adam demanded, rushing to peer over the shoulder of the foreman. His voice was steady, but the absolute fury in the tension of his jaws and pinch of his eyes was uncharacteristic.

“It’s some sort of power outage in the west quarter.” The foreman was stuttering, could barely get it out before Adam gripped his shoulder firmly. This was a man built for computers and employee management, not disaster. “Everything, including the electric fencing, is down.”

“Damage?”

The video feeds around the room were immediately flitting to the west quarter of the park in particular. The triceratops exhibit, the procompsognathus, the dilophosaurs…

The birdcage and the T-rex.

Adam watched as the glass dome of the pterodactyl exhibit burst open onscreen.

“This is impossible!” the foreman stammered. People around the room already had phones running per protocol, calling emergency services, government officials, John. “This sort of electrical shut-off would have to happen from the inside--!”

Adam patted his back roughly. “Emergency procedures, get those fences up and get everybody out of this park,” he ordered. “I’m leaving. The Boss’ brother is in charge.”

“The T-rex handler?” the foreman asked incredulously, but Adam was already gone.

On his way out the door, he spoke into his iDroid, voice quieter and dangerously calm. “V, report to command immediately. Code 1. I need you to protect Kazuhira Miller above all else. I’m getting the twins.”

People were going to die in this.

On Adam’s watch, however, none of them would be _his_ people.

 

x

 

It seemed the birdcage’s glass wasn’t nearly as strong as the information rattled off to tourists led them to believe. Without the protection of electric fencing, multiple dinosaurs were quickly pecking out their own escape routes, both down onto the catwalk and up into the sky above the dome proper.

They were smart.

David could barely register the commotion happening in the cascade of falling glass, people screaming from every direction, but he was vaguely aware of a strong hand clamping onto his elbow and yanking him forward.

“Don’t stop! Get to the exit!” It was Pequod’s voice, suddenly a powerful roar. He directed the terrified masses with utmost clarity, pulling David along in one hand and Eli in the other. David found himself stumbling backwards and sideways, turned around awkwardly and not quite able to keep up with Pequod’s pace as he was half-dragged along. Behind them he saw the massive form of a pterodactyl hunched on the actual catwalk much too close, its leathery wings crinkled up as it began crawling on all fours rapidly towards them…

Some people weren’t fast enough, and the dinosaur’s odd-shaped beak suddenly lost every ounce of goofy charm as those razor teeth tore through flesh and bone.

David only caught a glimpse before Pequod finally managed to jerk him forward-facing. They were all crammed amidst too many people now, congested and panicking, all stuck like a blood clot in an artery much too far from the exit.

“Clear the way!” Pequod shouted. “Four by four, sort yourselves four by four at least--!” But the tourists were too panicked to obey such instructions. Pequod started shouldering slowly through the crowd, trying to get to the front, but he couldn’t get much farther than the backmost clutter. Somewhere in David’s fumbling brain he realized Pequod might be able to be more effective if he wasn’t so steadfastly refusing to let go of David and Eli.

David saw his brother’s face briefly over someone’s shoulder, through the gap of someone else’s elbow. Eli’s blue eyes were darting around wildly, blood dripping down his face from a cut on his forehead, looking more panicked than David had ever seen him. That was the moment terror finally knifed through the fog in David’s head.

They were all going to die.

The screams from the too-slow tourists meeting their death were horrifically audible alongside the frantic cries of the trapped mob, and Pequod kept trying to force his way through like an ox, but he was still too far back, so far back that they would surely be some of the first to get torn apart.

Then suddenly the screams rose in pitch to an unearthly shriek as another pterodactyl began pecking a crack in the glass right alongside them. The mob lost its mind, fanning away from the exit in their attempts to escape this second dinosaur… only to push each other closer to the gaping maw of the first.

The only thing David wanted was to get close to Eli. There was no way he could think of anything to say, but Eli was all David had ever known. You don’t have to like someone to need them, to at least die next to them.

The second pterodactyl came bursting through the glass straight into the crowd, and something strange happened then, like the world was tilting sideways, and Pequod heaved himself to the ground, wrapping the boys in his arms. The weight of the two dinosaurs sent the entire catwalk tilting, snapping its legs. The catwalk itself crashed through the glass, tangled in the useless mesh, and then it all went down.

They were falling.

Screams, the cracks and bangs of failing infrastructure, and above it all an almost triumphant trumpet of a noise from the dinosaurs themselves.

David heard his brother’s voice shouting his name.

Then black.

The next few moments stuttered in and out of focus like a busted television trying to cough out a movie. Black. Then David was blinking, pressed close to Pequod’s chest. Pequod’s arm was moving forcefully, jangling him. Pequod was tearing at the wall of mesh. They were hanging in some liminal space above the ground amidst the twisted remains of the catwalk. The world tilted again. Something smacked his back, knocking the wind out of him. Black. Another fall. Black. Then David was seeing half dirt and half black eye-stars. He was on actual ground, the carefully cultivated earth of the pterodactyl enclosure. Eli’s voice was saying something. Pequod grabbed him under the elbows and dragged him. Overhead, the honking cries of the dinosaurs… Black.

Then David woke up all at once.

Eli smacked his shoulder. “Fucking idiot,” he spat. The cut on his forehead didn’t seem too bad, but the blood had smeared all across his face and his blond hair was wild, like a demon.

David was flat on his back on the ground and slowly sat up, minding his head because they were in pretty close quarters actually. He and Eli and Pequod were all huddled in a sort of cave made from one of the rocks in the enclosure and a pile of debris from the catwalk that had collapsed on top of it. There was only one opening, and Pequod was curled awkwardly just inside of it, too tall for the seating.

“Are you alright, Dave?” Pequod asked, intense but strangely calm. He looked ragged also. A large gash had torn down the front of his shirt, but there wasn’t much blood so he seemed to be ok. His nametag was gone forever.

David could only imagine what he himself looked like. But he gave his limbs a shake, rolled his shoulders. He felt sore all over, scraped raw, but nothing was broken.

“I’m fine.”

“Took a fucking nap then,” said Eli.

“You sure like that word,” said Pequod, and a weak ghost of his old smile crept back.

“Where are we?” David asked.

“Nowhere good,” said Pequod. “But… I have a feeling we’ve fared better than the rest. The catwalk collapsed on itself so now we’re in the lion’s den. I guess most of the lions have already vacated.”

“Lucky,” Eli muttered.

“No,” said Pequod, gentle but firm. “Those animals are out in the park now. I can’t even imagine.”

There was a long silence but Pequod softened it by adding, “I think we’ll be safe, though. Security should be swarming here soon.”

Life liked to be contrary though, didn’t it?

Their makeshift team barely had time to settle before the trumpeting call of another pterodactyl made the three of them freeze completely. It sounded close, and was followed by a sound David couldn’t place at first. Then he realized: it was the movement of air beneath enormous wings.

One of the dinosaurs came into view right through their shelter’s entrance, alighting in the dirt only a few feet away and shuffling about on all fours. It hadn’t noticed they were there… Pequod put a finger to his lips, not taking his eyes off the dinosaur, but Eli and David already knew to be absolutely quiet and still.

This pterodactyl was somewhat smaller than the others they’d glimpsed. Its pointed beak was just as deadly though, as were the talons on its feet, now visible at this proximity. All three of them stared at it, barely able to breathe.

Then their worst fear happened, so simple, just like that. The pterodactyl turned its great pointed head and its beady eyes locked right on their hiding place and the three humans trapped within.

Rapidly the dinosaur started crawling toward them, its movements fast but awkward and unnerving on its winged arms. Just as quickly, Pequod turned his back to the monster and splayed out his gangly limbs to cover as much of the entrance as possible with his body.

“No,” David croaked, completely unable to move.

Pequod’s face was grim and scared. “If you can run--” he started, voice cracking.

But there was no time to finish before he was plucked out of the opening like a grape off the vine. The pterodactyl dragged him backward, beak around his middle, and wrapped him in leathery arms as it tore and he struggled.

“No!” David’s legs had no strength but he still stumbled forward, reaching out, before Eli jerked him back again into the deeper recesses of their hiding place.

It was incomprehensible. In the scuffle between man and dinosaur, they could only get glimpses of Pequod trying to escape. Blood was blackening the dirt.

Then a sickening crack sounded and Pequod went limp all at once. The pterodactyl picked at him a bit before throwing him to the ground and climbing atop his body, throwing its head back for another alien cry.

It started toward the boys again, crawling right over Pequod’s corpse like it was nothing, its little black eyes intent in its warped sharp head.

Then another crack sounded-- a gunshot.

And the pterodactyl’s head exploded.

David and Eli could only stare dumbstruck as the monster fell to the ground, dead.

Then a woman appeared with a big fucking gun.

 

x


End file.
